Report of the Workshop on Bycatch Reduction in the ETP (Eastern Tropical Pacific) Purse-Seine Fishery (2nd). Held in La Jolla, California on October 3-4, 2006; Administrative rept

摘要

Purse-seine fisheries for tunas in the eastern tropical Pacific Ocean (ETP) utilize three techniques to catch tuna: dolphin fishing, school fishing, and fishing on floating objects (primarily fish aggregating devices FADs), each of which has significant differences in area, production, and size and composition of target catch and bycatch. Of the three, FAD-fishing is estimated to generate the largest amount of bycatch of many species, including sharks, sea turtles, mahi mahi, wahoo and small individuals of the target tuna species. Skipjack tuna compose the greatest amount of the bycatch of targeted tuna species. The distribution of bycatch varies both temporally and spatially. The least sustainable bycatch in floating object sets is believed to be sea turtles, small bigeye tuna, and silky and oceanic whitetip sharks. However, as there are no stock assessments for most of these species, the significance of the bycatch is not generally known either from the point of view of the stock or the ecosystem. Improvements in the identification and estimation of bycatch are currently underway in this fishery.